Why I Wasn’t Blogging

1 year and 9 months. That’s exactly how long I’ve abandoned this little cozy space.

Photo by : Ko Thawng Thang

I don’t want to be a hypocrite

Say I wanted to criticize about a group of people in Burma regarding how they’d been doing business there. Then, I’d ask myself “What kind of very successful business do you have to validate that statement”? Snap! I deleted the draft. Or say I liked to blog about “how networking is not for very honest people who can’t pretend a bit” (because I personally dislike it). My inner self would ask me “Have you not pretended once among many strangers?”. And there goes another post into the bin.

Basically, I attempted to. But couldn’t conclude anything. My usual writer / blogger / whatever block.

I’m tired of Burma

As someone who have been spending almost all of her years in 20s abroad, I still feel as if I am one of most practical bridges to connect occurrences  and those who have no clue about Burma. And obviously Burma is major topic on this blog. But I tend to be sick of it.

I could have blogged about first ever chance to vote in my entire life, hype about election or some lamest things you couldn’t imagine elsewhere. But I am really tired of it.

I hate doing what everyone’s doing since I was little. I hate following the hype unless it draws immense attention to me. Likewise, when every ones’s rushing to talk about Burma, I feel bored.

I Spent Way Too Much Time on Facebook

You might say “You don’t say” or “It happens to everyone of us”. But then, I suppose I could use an excuse or two saying I need to keep track of what is actually happening on Facebook everyday because that’s basically part of how I am earning money right now.

I am not a privacy freak and I would not agree with those cartoons screaming “Social networks destroy our real social connections” and stuff like that. But still. It took quite a fair share of my time and I rarely wanted to write elsewhere.

Regardless,

I’m back. Both to this blog and soon to Yangon. I don’t know if I’m disappointed or excited at this point. I am slightly scared of reversed culture-shock, though. Many people forecasted that I wouldn’t be able to live in Yangon! So, we’ll see.

Watermoon : Best Trips so far in My Life – Part 1 | Ngwe Saung

Down to the point, I got married in exactly three months ago. *wink*

I haven’t blogged about it here although I keep a separate entity of my wedding blog somewhere else since I think it is too personal. On the other hand, I think I shouldn’t give a miss to blog about my honeymoon under travel list here.

I wanted to go to Myeik which is my hometown. Let’s just say it didn’t work out for various reasons. We settled our thoughts with Ngwe Saung and another charming place before we flied to Yangon. And our honeymoon started.

Ngwe Saung

Let Ngapali be most beautiful beach in Myanmar, Ngwe Saung has most beautiful staffs with biggest smile! Silence of sort of private beach, spacious yet cozy bungalow and scrumptious sea food are all harmonized with our new joy right after wedding.

We left Yangon on 12th December in the early morning to catch the coach direct to Ngwe Saung. No one in love would complain about 5 hours ride to the beach. To hold my title of “complain queen”, I encountered something awful once our bus touched the sand of Ngwe Saung. That’s what I posted that time.

It was not quite clear if they assume only foreigners read English or they think there were other resources about it in Burmese elsewhere which apparently there weren’t any.

We took a trishaw to go to our bungalow from where the bus had stopped. If you could afford, please pay more than they ask since it is hard for them to survive. (We did.) We chatted a bit with tri-shaw driver and he told us the story of how palm tress there were cut off for hotels to be built. While I appreciated development of tourism business there, it was disheartening to hear that no one had been taking responsibility to replace locals’ original businesses. He said their coconut related business was good back then and after demolishing of many coconut trees, some people even commit suicide due to the struggle they had faced.

Trishaw drivers and their family live in such houses at the village near Ngwe Saung Beah

I was amused by the look and feel of our bungalow. It was quite spacious for two of us. As the hotel did not seem to have local food (weirdo, I know), we asked the reception to recommend some beach restaurant that sold yummy seafood. We called the restaurant, they delivered what we ordered within like 30 minutes and we tucked into it! I think I forgot everything when I ate lobster while gazing at the beach and feeling beach breeze.

Bay of Bengal, Ngwe Saung

I forgot everything when I ate lobster while gazing at the beach and feeling beach breeze.

Even the bathroom was lovely. In the evening of first day, we tried to walk to the village market and get some more information and yacht competition that was part of SEAGames. Thank to whoever responsible for that, we had none and eventually we gave up and enjoy the rest of our honeymoon by eating, sleeping, chit-chatting and eating. What else honeymoons are for?

Although lobster was spectacular, I preferred calm and crab. My other half is not a fan of sea we kept surfing comfortable waves minimal. On the second day, we enjoyed the sunset in the sea. The experience was spectacular. He was singing songs funnily while I was trying to capture how beautiful the world is. When I think about it now, I still could feel how pleasant the environment was and how awesome I was feeling. Too special. Too yummy.

Supporting Myanmar Vs Thai football match of SEAGames 2014. Fried calm is in the box!

We brought a tripod with us so we could do some crazy stuff without the need to feel ashamed in front of a stranger who would be asked to record our moments. We took photos while we were eating, while we were in the sea, while we were walking and while we were talking. Such joyous three days could probably be the best part of 2013 for me.

On third day evening, my best friend and her husband joined us. We had lunch together and shopped around near the restaurant. It was the only day we dine-in instead of ordering delivery since we were addicted the coziness of eating in our bungalow a lot. Believe it or not, we had all lunch and dinner from exact same restaurant! We did ask around but ended up choosing the same restaurant even on the day dining out with my friend.

Pathain Htee | Traditional umbrella largely made in Pathain, a town near Ngwe Saung in Ayeyarwaddy Division. It’s taken at village market near Ngwe Saung Beach.

Dried fish shop at village market near Ngwe Saung beach

After relaxing three full nights at Ngwe Saung, we wrapped our first part of honeymoon and were back to Yangon. It was fun using USDs there because when a Myanmar uses USD instead of Kyats to pay, they think very highly of him/her. The only reason we used USD was because their exchange rate was much higher than average rate and we could spend less if we paid by USD.

Now, you get some hint why I named our honeymoon “watermoon”. Guess what is another famous place in Myanmar with “water”. I shall blog about second part of our honeymoon soon.

May God Bless You?

First of, I’m not a very devoted Buddhist anymore. I do not pray daily like I did till half a year ago. I still lie at times although I don’t kill/steal/drink/cheat with one’s spouse. If I have to come out with an excuse to conceal my laziness, it has to be my lack of commitment on studying more about it and meditating. Buddhism in Myanmar, to be precise, traditional Buddhism in Myanmar is too vague. Since a couple of years ago, I become to have a strong feeling that I must learn Buddhism via English resources. Many Myanmar might bash me for saying so but who are they to judge me?

Leave that aside, from time to time, I have been developing my tolerance and impression on other religions, or rather people who follow different religions. I have lots of Muslim friends – my first every best friend was a lovely Muslim girl, my first neighbour in my entire life was a very friendly Muslim family, one of my my first colleagues is a funny Muslim girl and I have been asked if I was a Muslim at times because of my facial appearance. Long story short, I do not have any problem with them just because they follow a different religion apart from a need of reminding myself not to talk about/eat pork when they are around. Same thing goes for Christians. In fact, I even feel like Christians in Myanmar are really lovely and fun to hang out as they have open mindset comparing to average Buddhists, a little bit more westernized in a way. And that is very cool with me. Needless to mention for Hinduism as my great great grandpa is a Hindu and even my parents still believe in some parts of Hinduism.

Being said, I do not really like the idea of discussing about religion with friends. What’s the point of doing so unless you are in an interfaith dialogue section? I feel it way more peaceful, fun and enjoyable whenever we do not discuss about it with people with various beliefs. For me, religion is something to practice yourself, not to show off to everyone around you as if you own a genuine diamond ring while theirs are intimate ones.

Here’s the point of those long winded intro. Very recently, a friend of mine chatted with me. She is my childhood friend whom I know since like 16 years ago. She is the one who had introduced me with Christian for first time ever when she had given away Christian leaflets in our primary class on her birthday as gifts to classmates. So, recently we were talking about childhood and all these stuff. She seems to love me so much even now and I love her, too. She is super adorable. Finally, she asked me what should she pray for me at church next time. I was like “Wow, she loves me that much?”. Then she concluded our conversation with “May God bless you.”

I kind of felt uneasy. To make it very clear, I am very thankful to have such a friend who would spend time for me during her religious session. And that made me think of all those “May God bless you” things. As there are very few religions in our world which are not based upon “God”, many people are very used to say “May God bless you” as if it was a greeting phrase. I am really thankful to be greeted so but I can’t help thinking if we actually need it? Of course, you should definitely do it with those whoever believe in God. But for other people who are atheists and who follow religions with different nature, would it even make sense? Yes, I know. Whoever saying “May God bless you” to me really care for me and want me to see fine with everything. I totally understand they say it with good will. But shouldn’t there be a better way to show our “love” with something  that is not related to religion? Wouldn’t it be a bit more comfortable?  Why do we need to bring “religion” to stress that we care our loved ones? Just my thoughts, you can differ freely. And I would still appreciate whoever would say this to me in future like I thank to whoever tell me to eat more vegetables although they know I have lachanophobia. (At this point, I consider literally like 15 times should I publish this or not as I do not want to lose friendship with any of my friends. I was kind of scared people would think me immature or intolerant. But I still want to do it so that you are reading it now. 🙂 ) 

And I still have no clue what should I reply apart from a boring “thanks” to “May God bless you” greeting. Should I reply something like

Impermanent are all created things, strive on with awareness.

ASEAN Blog Fest 2013

You gotta believe me. This blog fest is not only about blogging but also all about fun and friendship. Listing down what happened in chronological way is too mainstream, so here are the highlights that touched me.

Indonesians are super friendly

Tea Break at Pool Side, Kusuma Sahid Prince Hotel, Solo.

Oh my goodness! I have no clue how to describe their friendliness. My roommate, for instance, was very kind and understandable. I did not need to pretend anything when she was around just because she was a stranger. In extremely short time, we had already shared pretty much about us. Same went for the rest. All of them are so kind and humble that it made me feel like I made a right decision to visit to Solo. Two ladies I met on one of the shuttle buses gave me three little chocolate boxes although we had not known each other and did not have much time to talk. Thanks for everyone who took photo with me and came and talked to me. That experience was really a warm touch.

SEAsia is beautiful

So as SEAsians. All the organisers and international bloggers who attended the event made me feel so. Everyone of them were so lovely that I did feel home when they were around. I have learnt various interesting things from them about different parts of Southeast Asia. Many of them inspired me and others had fun together with me. That part of 2013 will always be in my memory.I have soft spots when it comes to SEAsia as I believe our countries are more or less connected and cultures and traditions are similar. (I am not so keen to use ASEAN as I always feel like it is something related to governments.)  Instead of debating if Batik belongs to Malaysia or Indonesia or if Water Festival was originated from Myanmar or Thailand, we should promote those to rest of the world. And if all SEAsains are like this bunch of people I have met in Solo, I believe we could achieve it.

Indonesian Traditional Musical Instruments. The xylophones are very similar to Burmese traditional xylophones.

SEAsians waiting for a taxi. I bet no westerner could tell who is from which country. 😉

Blogging is not dead

I thought it was dead, at least almost dead. May be because I abandoned my Burmese blog for years. Maybe because many Myanmar bloggers are writing notes on Facebook instead of their blogs. But I became to learn that there are lots of active bloggers who are blogging enthusiastically up until now. It was really encouraging to see different government ministries of Indonesia were supporting the event as well as blogging itself. And I wonder when could such thing happen in Myanmar where a blogger was at risk of getting sued for criticizing the parliament.

Singaporeans please!

I am not too sure if any Singaporeans would get mad if they found out that two people from Malaysia and Myanmar represented to talk about their wonderful country during the event. I was not too sure why, but there was no single Singaporeans in the event and that was sad.

Reporting about Tourism and Blogging Community in Singapore.

I do not want to accuse that Singaporeans have less interest on those community related meet ups and volunteering etc as they have less chances to do so in a very developed country. But I do believe that they could use their facilities and opportunities to help ASEAN community grows together. I would love to see them mingle with the rest of SEAsians. They should not be left out just because they are from most developed country in the region, should they?

Once as an Emcee

The ridiculous thing was we had never been to any kind of wedding in Singapore yet my b.f’s friends believed us to be the emcees at their wedding! And we knocked our head at once.

Thank  to the public speaking training at Yangon University of Foreign Languages, precisely Japanese Department, I am never afraid of presentation. Still, the wedding emcee thing was too far away from us especially when we didn’t know how a usual Wedding goes here.

As there would be two emcees, we didn’t need to argue that I would handle English announcements while he would do for Burmese. Not because my English pronunciation was good but because he didn’t want to study by-heart the polished words and sentences good for a wedding.

So, I googled, googled and googled. The problem was that the westernish guides for being emcees were prefect but not really suited for their kind of Myanmar, Singapore-ish wedding and the customised Singapore wedding script were meant for Chinese couples. #_#

I had to take bits by bits from here and there to complete our very own bilingual wedding script. After adding up his idea and some jokes I could think of, the script had looked good. We had finished the script a week before but could spend only about two nights (i.e. around 3 hours) to practice it. Just not to disappoint the bride and groom, we did make effort to study the lines by-heart but couldn’t make it for all sentences.

Then we had to go for shopping for both of us. I was looking for a nice dress, I wanted it to be in some bright colour but ended up with picking up a black one because I do not want to be too obvious in the whole wedding. We found a nice coat for him, too.

And so the wedding day came. Oh, about a week before the wedding day, the couple invited us to join food testing with them. Believe me, there’s no such thing in Myanmar. It might even cost more there to throw a wedding party but no hotel would provide you such service which I find awesome. We commented for a couple of dishes, I personally enjoyed that dinner. 🙂

So, the wedding day came (it actually came not like in last paragraph, lol). I took half-day leave from office to make it on time to go for make-up. I am one of such weird girls whom make-up artists find very difficult to help with. On that day, she could neither curl my eyelashes nor put the fake lashes on. Furthermore, I even failed to let her do the eyeliner for waterline. ROFL

Long story short, we checked the stage, had a short discussion with event supervisor, prepared for songs and did a quick rehearsal with microphones. When the couple actually came out, it was all smooth until the DJ forgot to play the chosen song while the second clipping was being streamed. But everybody did not take it seriously which we had to thank a lot!

We had prepared two lovely games – an ordinary shoes game and “come to wife”. If you don’t know what is “Shoe game” at a wedding, just google it. For the “come to wife” game, I found it from a Youtube clip of a wedding in Malaysia if I’m not wrong. It sounds simple but very engaging and every audience will find it fun.

We asked the bride to stand near the stage and blind-folded the groom. A friend of groom took him to somewhere far from the stage. The bride would have to instruct the groom to come to her by directing “go left”, “go right”, “walk straight”, “move backward” and “stop”. But to make things fun, we swapped with instructions with some other wedding related liners which finally became
“go left” = “I love you, darling”
“go right” = “Do the dishes”
“go straight” = “Buy me Gucci”
“move backward” = “Let’s make baby”
“stop” = “Kiss me please”
Imagine how it would look like the bride saying those sentences to direct the groom! In our particular one, the groom went drunk just by some cups forced by friends, it was much more difficult for him to reach her. LOL We did torture them a lot.

We touched up with Myanmar traditional wedding custom for the end of the event. It is called “Kyoe-Tar” which can be directly translated into “Blocking with rope”. Whenever the newly wed is about to enter their bedroom for that night, the close friends and relatives draw a line with any kind of rope – golden necklaces in most cases, sometimes they go wild with belts and anything that is considered rope. And the couple had to pay cash to break the rope! Just a way of torturing them before their exciting night. In this wedding, I totally forget what they used for it but as there was no handy cash for the groom and bride, we considered one little glass used as door gift was equivalent to S$10. And the groom signed on it not to get cheated with normal door gifts! LOL

That’s it. I have the ready pdf for the scripts we used but need to clear out the personal names so later I’ll upload it  and uploadedEmcee Script (English & Burmese). ^^

12 Resolutions on 12/12/12

I do want to post something on 12/12/12 no matter how much it could sound cheesy or lame. So, I’m going to write about 12 New Year resolutions. I didn’t usually set new year resolutions because I had no confidence that I would ever make it happen. But yeah, here it is for next supposed-to-be-awesome-year. (If the world wouldn’t end on 21/12/12.)

1. I will keep Global Voices Burmese active no matter what.

   Though I’ve joined it since 2010, I never happen to keep it active every single month though it recently got the momentum to be so. If you are a native Burmese speaker and every happen to see this, feel free to volunteer!

2. I will go abroad at least twice!

   One trip is almost confirmed so I have to look for another awesome country.

3. I will earn more!

   I don’t love money but I do love to have it and it is also a crucial part to fulfill my dreams – be it for myself or for others. So, I will definitely earn more and make my “earning plans” happen! (Stay tuned!)

4. I will read more (English) books.

   If there is one reason why my English usage is so lousy, it has to be lack of time spending on reading English books. I own a kindle but it’s stuffed with Burmese almost all the time. Yes, I will read more. I will read more. I will read more. I will read more.

5. I will talk less.

   (Don’t raise your eyebrows, my buddies!) I know I am one of the super talkative girls in the whole entire universe. But in this case, “talk less” would mean “do more” – not that I will stop endless chit-chat with you guys!

6. I will stay healthy.

   My BMI is still under average although I gained weight and went beyond 110 lbs (Yes, in Myanmar people still use  Imperial Units as a result of once being under British Colonies.) And I have some unwanted fat. #_#

7. I will write more.

   For me, writing reflects “fiction” works rather than articles etc. I have been writing a number of fictions (in Burmese) and couldn’t even finish one though some fictional short stories got published. I will finish at least one of those in progress. Let’s see if I can transform it into a physical book!

8. I will learn Buddhism in English.

   Because I feel like it is more accurate and practical to learn it in English rather than in Burmese with many tales and non-Buddhism related thingies.

9. I will study Spanish.

   I know 3 languages quite well and 1 a bit but 3 of those are Asian languages with their own characters. I always wish to learn a western language with English characters or similar ones. Among shortlisted French, Spanish, Italian and German, I will go with Spanish because I love the culture of Latin America!

10. I will polish my Japanese.

    It would be very shameful if I couldn’t teach it to my children in future although I spent 3 whole years for it, wouldn’t it?

11. I will care my parents more.

    Let’s see if I can persuade them to retire at the end of 2013! 🙂

12. Last but definitely not least, I will love him more.

    He has been too perfect for me. Can you imagine a boyfriend who doesn’t smoke, drink, gamble and horny and stick with you for 2372 days by not minding your awful mass, intolerable scolding and daily drama and by supporting whatever crazy craps you are dreaming?

Oh, it’s so exciting just to imagine for the moment I can strike those off line by line!

All about my phoibas!

I believe there’s no such a person without a single type of phobia. Everybody has at least one and so do I. But my phobias are pretty unique as the way I am.

1) Lachanophobia (Fear of Vegetables)

My worst phobia ever. Since I was born, I have very rarely eaten it. It was worse in childhood. When I was in primary school, I seldom had my dinner with my family. The reason was I couldn’t stand the smell of any type of vegetables. Whenever my mom was reheating the vegetable dishes, I ran away from kitchen.

So, what happen if I try to eat it. Vomitting!! I really have tried to consume these green thingies but it always ends with vomitting. It literally drives me to run to the basin and vomit all from my stomach.

Treatment? No one and nothing can attract me to conquer it. My dad has tried to make me eat vegetables by giving me double of normal pocket money when I was about 11. I have been scolded and beaten by my mom. But nothing works till now. The only thing my boyfriend can do is removing such thing from my meal in case we forget to put additional note when we make our order.

Exception? Yes, there are some under the group of vegetables that I can consume. These things include corn, all kind of peas and beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes and the only leave I eat (& I like!) is tea leave, in fact, pickled tea leave. I can eat spring rolls though it is made up of varieties of vegetables. Plus, all fruits are fine with me though some people who have Lachanophobia also encounter fear of fruits, too.

I know there are tons of cons because of this phobia such as dining with unfamiliar people, making others shock when I reveal this, getting assumed that I have some abnormal emotions and you name it. But it just can’t help.

2) Anthophobia (Fear of flowers)

I’m neither tomboy nor a boyish girl, but I can’t stand for flowers, too. It may be related to Lachannophobia and my assumption is I’m always afraid of green things but I love the colour green! I hate seeing flowers even as an image. My face will be too ugly whenever I get the smell of any type of flowers. It happens even now, just by imaging the smell! But I’m totally fine with plastic or paper flowers.

As I’m a buddhist and almost all of buddhists especially in Myanmar have worshiped Buddha with flowers and they usually put and clean the vases,  some people have asked me about this.

How would you do this when you have family?

And my simple answer is “My boyfriend will do so”. :D.

3) Xanthophobia (Fear of Yellow colour)

No, I’m not mentally ill person.And this phobia is a softer one. It should be said as a “strong dislike” rather than “fear” to translate phobia in this case.

I never use yellow even when I’m just aimlessly playing with paper or paints. I don’t have any yellow coloured clothing nor any stuffs. And I am not happy to see someone wearing yellow outfits especially if he/she is my favourite.

4)Tonitrophobia (Fear of Thunders)

I don’t recall if I had during my childhood.But though I’m an absolute adult, I don’t feel comfortable when it’s thundering. 😦

I can sleep if it’s raining cats and dogs at midnight. But I can’t stay near windows if it’s thundering. If I were walking on the road when it’s thundering, I feel like sweating a lot and walk at my best speed to reach under a safe roof.

5) Thanatophobia (Fear of Death or Dying)

It simply sucks. I am tolerant to pain and not afraid of diseases nor suffering but dying. Because I don’t really have no idea what will happen to me after death. I’m a Buddhist and strongly believe about sansara but wondering what will exactly happen to ME.

Another feeling is why all things in my life need to be gone after death? All things I’ve created, got, loved, felt will be gone! That’s why I can’t imagine what if I die. To solve this phobia, I guess I need to meditate regularly.

6)Scriptophobia (Fear of Writing in public)

Yeah, I love writing from bottom of my heart but not in front of everyone. 😦 I can’t continue writing if someone is looking at the screen. It implied not only to writing stories/poems but also to writing codes and I could manage to overcome the latter.

I know why it happens. The reason is I’m too shy to show it out before it’s completely finished. Once it’s done, I’m more than ready to show it to everyone I’d love to.

Well, it’s enough. That’s all for me (at least, almost all). My dad has serious Hemophobia, my mom has Ophidiophobia, Chinese are well-known for having Tetraphobia, some Myanmar do have Sinophobia and Aquaphobia & Acrophobia are also widely found in most people.

So, let me know what’s yours? Can’t think of one? Find it out here or here.

A transform of happiness and thankfulness to words or The Graudation Speech

A very good afternoon to Ms Ng Wee Wei, Mr Lim Swee Cheang, lecturers, staff, parents, relatives, all guests and graduands. It’s really a great pleasure to stand here today and my friends, please don’t worry, I won’t talk in a long winded way as I did in the discussion rooms.

It’s an honour to be able to give this speech as a student who had been rejected after the aptitude test and interview not once but twice. Yes, I think all of us have failed at least once. When we fail, we usually think that if we can make it just this one time, the struggle is over.  In reality, it isn’t.

When I applied to ISS, I thought it would be wonderful if I it was accepted. But after I received the offer letter, I realized that there much more had to be done. When we were doing our Continuous Assessments, I remember, we quarrelled a lot as if it was the final stop. But it wasn’t. The next was Exam! With the heavy text books, the packs of blank A4 paper taken from the security uncles, the long queue at printers, the stack of coffee cups like Eiffel Tower, we passed our exams thinking that it’s over. But, it’s not yet again. The AD project was waiting for us. New team, new room and new mindset to fight. Not really, but we did face difficulties during that one month. We cried and we smiled. We fought and we thought. After our AD project was successfully finished (at least, it was supposed to be so), what was next for us? Internship! Bearing in our mind that Internship was our last milestone in this course, we were survivors during those five months.. Yes, it’s challenging compared to campus but it was just heaven compared to working in a real job. Isn’t it?

I must say this course becomes more invaluable because of the industrial attachment program. Sitting straight on the chair for 9 hours is not as easy as we have thought before especially when we need to utilise our brain by assimilating and rethinking all the facts that we have learnt here. And what have we learnt during internship? I have learnt Ctrl C & Ctrl V well. Someone said he had learnt Ctrl F and Ctrl H, too. Well, anyway, the attachment program was a very good step for us. Shaping us to know the feeling of the real IT working environment, making us communicate with people effectively, stretching our capabilities to produce results with the given task and time constraint. I cannot express in these few words how enriched we have become as result of the Internship.

So, looking back to November 2009, when we took the aptitude test, we always thought that it was going to be finished after the offer letter, CAs, Exams, AD project, Internship, Job Interviews and finally official employment. However, our journey isn’t over yet and I don’t think it will be as long as we are alive.

During our journey, we thought that it’s very troublesome dealing with Esther’s demands as she played the role as user. But now, we also find out that real world users can lend us in more trouble than her.Yes, I think everyone couldn’t agree more that life at work is way more difficult than that of campus. In our work environment, there’s no Derek who is willing to help us with every issue, no Megan who worries for us all the time and no Venkat who is willing to help us understand the technology in depth.And yes, we cannot watch Mulan on Youtube at work like we enjoyed together during lectures.

We need to face it that our life has changed and it can be said that another phase of our journey has begun. And all our lecturers, supervisors, families and friends  here in this auditorium have supported us to make it. Without you all, today would have been impossible.

I would like to say a big thank you from the bottom of my heart to all the lecturers and staff at ISS. Moreover, I couldn’t conclude this speech without saying thank you to my beloved team members and all the classmates who are sitting here. Finally, thank you to my mom, dad, aunty and all the family members here whose support enabled us to stand here with pride..

All my dear friends, now, we are supposed to be qualified enough to start a new chapter of our life. To those who are already working, I believe you will try your best and enjoy your chosen path. To those who are in the process of looking for a job, please treasure this moment. This may be your last long time holiday in your life.

Walt Disney said “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” And we all did by graduating from ISS with enough courage though this may just be a small dream for some of us. I sincerely wish all of you success to achieve your goals and the belief that you have ability to do it.

Thank you so much.

P.S No idea what to post new and all are pending in draft. That’s why I posted this. ^_^

Reflection

Just a year after the biggest revolution in Myanmar political history, in a very pleasant coast town which is situated in southern Myanmar, a stubborn girl was born. She is so proud of her town though she can’t speak its dialect anymore. She is too happy when she hears someone speaking in its dialect. When she was nearly 5 years old, her family moved to the former capital city of Myanmar, Yangon.

If Myeik is her heart, then, Yangon is her soul. No city in the whole universe can’t beat it in her soul. Her memories, her remembrances, her activeness, her courage, her youthful days and everything related to her life can be found there.

She is terribly bad at drawing and singing. She can’t feel paintings though she is fond of  all other kinds of art like music, movie, books, dance, photography and so on. The only thing she can draw is house! And she wanted to be an architect strongly since she was 6. Actually, she had wanted to be a teacher when she was in Kinder Garten. Since her mom absolutely denied it, she changed her mind to be an engineer, more specifically an architect. But since after a children poem got published in a famous children magazine, she wants to become a author. Yes, that’s her greatest aim in life since she was 6 that she haven’t achieved yet.

She is not intelligent enough to be in love with Mathematics. On the other hand, she possess a pretty good memory especially on her childhood. She still remembers that she has killed a fly with hand and she was playing with shit (literally) in the toilet when she was 3, she had the chance to buy something cost only 1 Kyat, she has frequently fallen to a drainage near toilet in her primary school, she has gotten injury in head just by playing with her brother and so on. And she love to think about the facts in childhood like how she treated the ants, when Myanmar TV Channels started to broadcast International series (& which is the first or the names of series & actor/actresses), which section she was in which grade, which subject in which grade was taught by which teacher and something like that.

After passing the years by raking #1 frequently in the class, possessing more than enough affection on friends, daydreaming a lot and writing a lot (She has written more than 30 short stories and uncountable poems before she was 11.), her first short story got published in a children journal. At that time, she was 13 and she still remembers the day when the editor called and woke her up with the good news that hers would be published in next issue. She got 500 kyats ($0.5) for that article. The first earning in her life! Then, continuously, her poems, stories and essays got published on that journal. She stopped writing with children sense when she was 15 thinking that she became a teenager.

Her teenager life was so so. By getting excited for Thingyan (Water Festival), reading a lot (some books were read 50+ times),  gaming a lot (since Family console to today’s PSP), watching Chinese dramas a lot (which makes her understand basic usage of Chinese) and daydreaming especially on rainy days with a mug of coffee, her life was not bad. She was fond of writing diary everday which is too funny to read it back now, too. Plus, she wrote lots of short stories but in her own note book. Few of those got published in some well-known journals & magazines. But it made her year when one of hers was published in “Shwe A Myu Tay” Magazine in 2009.

Though she started to use PC since she was about 11, she made up her mind to make her profession computing related. When everybody put doctor or engineer on their English essays, she put computer profession instead by scraificing some of her English marks because it was supposed to be against with teacher. After passing martriculation exam, she wished to join UCSY. But her mom prefered going to private computer school mentioning that UCSY is not worth attending especially when its locaiton is way too far. Then, she joined to the best university in Myanmar (recoginzed by Ministry of Education, the rector has said so though she didn’t want to believe) majoring in Japanese. That was precious moment in her life! YUFL is awesome. Plus, Japanese department is much more amazing. Cool friends and smart lectureres made it fun even though YUFL is popular of its strict & nonsense rules.

After first semester, she was enlightened by a change. It’s the  ray of light that makes her life’s meaningful, an effort that supports her every second, a pair of eyes that watch her to keep away from harm and pain, a hand that never lets her down and a passion to move on her life. Yes, it’s love and a great guy brought it into her life and lasts forever.

When she becomes a so called adult, she went to a country which is small in the sense of area and large in the sense of development. She has changed A LOT after living there for a while mostly to the bad ways. She can’t write regularly, she can’t enjoy her life to fullest and realize that her memory and language skills go down and down.

Meanwhile, she gets tons of labels because she loves Myanmar too much, talks a lot (mostly nonsense) and too active when she seriously wants something. For instances, “Queen of Debate” (She is seriously not worth to spend your time just for arguing), “Miss Talkative” (& at the same time), “Miss No-Words” (What a funny contradiction!), “Patriot” (She loves it, by the way), “Blind Nationalist”, “Racist” (For writing a travel article and attracting votes) and the latest award is “A person who wishes to destroy Myanmar Language”. She agrees all of these except the last one since it is opposite to another label called “Myanmar Language Addicted”.

After passing 22 years of human life, she made up her mind again to be original her who loves daydreaming and who enjoy writing and reading most. She is really hoping that she can do it regardless of environment, time constraint or people.

P.S This post was supposed to be published on her birthday but couldn’t make it. Thanks for reading such a long post! ^_^

A to Z Singapore

My supervisor was in rush. That meant he had no time to assign me new task since afternoon. So I made up my mind to make a mini research to find out the influence on Singapore by using Google.  Here’s the A to Z list of top suggested keywords in Google of Singapore.

A
Personally, I’m happy that Apple is not #1  and also for top Air Asia.

B
BBC which is at second may broadcast that China is forcing their people if they know they don’t have enough influence for Chinese. Baidu is first!

C
“C” may love local or may be loved because the first three results are Cathay, CPF & Citbank.

D
Congratulations, DBS! They occupy two of the top three keywords DBS & DBS ibanking while “dictionary” stands at second.

E
Do Singaporeans love online shopping? You can see Ebay at #1 but the obvious thing is they love iphone as ebuddy stands second.

F
No Doubt at all! First two is Facebook & Facebook login. Is football third? No, but FIFA.

G
So, can we say Gmail is popular here? Proud of Golden Village as it’s the only non-google top keyword for this alphabet and takes thrid place.

H
Oh! G & H are rivals! Yes, it’s Hotmail & HDB has attraction for locals, too.

I
I haven’t been there. (Actually, I didn’t know what does it stand for.) & we can say that luxury is not as much as important as red tape as those results are shown. IRAS is first, ICA is second and Iphone 4 is thrid. I wonder why there’s no plain “I Pone” keyword in such an icountry.

J
Are there more travelers than job hunters? Jobsdb & Jobstreet are sandwiched between two Jetstar key words.

K
KFC. So “M” for “McDonald”? But there’s no Burger King for B. And one of the local brands KBox is second.

L
There must be more drivers than football fans in Singapore. LTA is first & livescore is second.

M
Wow, KFC rules! There’s no Macdonald at all & MSN is third while MOM takes second. So, who’s first? Simply, M1.

N
It’s NUS. The second result is NLB. Don’t feel bad NTU fellows, you are at third. Wow, “N” in Singapore is so literate! (Note: When you type only “N”, NTUC is just after NTU. But when you type “NT”, it’s vice versa.)

O
Bank again.  It’s OCBC. And here is an interesting fact that’s approving high Indian population in Singapore. Orkut is third.

P
Bank Bank Bank. The first keyword is POSB (though it doesn’t have own domain) & interestingly, there’s still influence of World Cup. Paul the octopus is #2.

Q
Just an airline. But it’s Australia National Airline callend Qantas. May be because there are few trademarks in Singapore who uses “q” as starting alphabet. “Quotes” is second.

R
Resort world Sentosa is knocked out after Reebonz & ROM. And do people wanna go for shopping rather than marriage?

S
Two adjacent results are from same industry. Singtel & Starhub. M1 might avoid “S” because of this.

T
I wonder who will come first if Tiger Airways starts with A or Air Asia starts with T. And as usual, Twitter can’t beat facebook as it stands at second.

U
“Can’t live without” for locals must be nothing except banks. Yes, it’s UOB & Universal Studio is only at third while URA is second.

V
Vpost can grab first while DHL is 4th at D. Oh, i know how much Vivocity is famous now. they stand at 3rd!

W
No wonder.  Wikipedia‘s first & third (Wiki)  and Facebook totally rules! the second result is http://www.facebook.com!
(Note: if you type www, first result is  Facebook while Yahoo follows it & Youtube is at thrid. Where is Gmail???)

X
Should be in Singapore. XinMSN comes out first and Xbox is 4th while there’s no PSP or Wii in “P” & “W”. Xe and XueSha (the keywords I’ve never heard) are second and third.

Y
You know it, right? Youtube is first, Yahoo (Singapore) is second & oops, is YOG third before Yahoo mail!?

Z
Oh! is it famous? Zuji; the travel site. Zara & Zouk stands second and third respectively.

According to those facts, Singapore government is fond of IT as 7 out of 83 results (Sorry, Mr. Environment, I betrayed you by emitting 10.4 grams of CO2) are government websites.  And Pure International Brand that doesn’t have a local site are only 20. The list mention that there is only one blog which is also 2009  Singapore best modeling blog. Are people only interested in Brand or Names? There are only two meaningful words; dictionary & quotes. The results may be varied time to time and who say mydaydream won’t be first suggesstion when you type “M” in Google 5 or 10 years later?? 😛